Christina’s Story

I am a 17 year old student at Mount Vernon High School in Mt. Vernon, WA. I have only recently learned of my ADD in May of ’99. I went through years of not knowing what was “wrong” with me and have seen many specialists. I was once tested to see if I was having small seizures in my brain. And even though ADD has no cure, it has helped me to understand what I am going through and the medication has helped me a lot. I am on Dexedrine and it has helped me in my concentration with my school work and with my music. For you see, I am a musician and a poet. I love my music and will never give it up. I have been playing the piano for 8 years, the flute for 7, the alto sax for 2 and the piccolo for 4. But my ADD has put limits on what I can do and it’s been hard having to discover these things. But I keep going. I have my faith in God and he has never let me down.

I have never been a person to understand math and I know I won’t. But I have gotten through the requirements that I have had but have had a really hard time. I have always had to teach myself the math that I need to know. I analyze the notes, the stuff in the books, and I listen to teacher’s lectures and then I can look over everything and basically translate math into English. I have had to break things down into the simplest form and shortest form.

I have discovered that I will never be able to play jazz piano, like I have dreamed of for my entire life. I am not able to sight read the music like is needed for the profession so I have to find an alternative career. I will either be in computer design stuff or music.

The worst part of this is that no one around me understands what I am going through and so it’s not a big deal to them. I have also found that an assignment that would take most of the class about 20 minutes to do, will take me an hour and a half. So I can’t cram too much into my schedule and it isn’t much to begin with